Last Ride of the Hogwarts Express
by newtypeshadow
Summary: When Voldemort plans to destroy the Hogwarts Express, Harry's only chance for survival rests with an embittered Death Eater's son. slash


title: Last Ride of the Hogwarts Express  
author: newtypeshadow  
disclaimer: the characters and settings used in this story are the property of J.K. Rowling, who is not myself.  
rating: R  
warnings: violence, slash hints  
notes: i really don't know about this one. did i leave too much out? comments and concrit (and betas)very welcome.

* * *

"Potter, I have to speak with you." 

Potter looked up from his seat across from Granger and the Weasel. Looking at him, Draco was struck by how much older they all were. Contrary to Potter's belief, Draco remembered that first meeting in Madam Malkin's shop. He remembered the weedy boy Potter had been; how new and uncomfortable and wondering he was in a world of robes and magic. Potter now sat confidently in his black school robe, not yet removed, bumping and swaying easily with the Hogwarts Express as if he'd been a wizard for all his life. Draco supposed he had. He felt an irrational surge of pride in that, as if he was partly responsible for Potter's comfort in his own skin. He felt pride, too, for the distrustful gazes leveled at him from all in the car.

"What's this, Malfoy?" Potter shifted. "Come to kiss me goodbye?"

"Oh, sod off, Potter, it's important."

Potter frowned at him but didn't move. "Whatever you have to say to me can be said in front of them."

Draco wondered how the lot would react to a declaration of love, but put that hysterical thought aside. "I don't care if they hear it or not, but we can't speak here." Out the window, the trees were thinning out. They'd be coming to the mountains soon.

"I don't think we're going anywhere," Weasley said. He'd never had good sense, none of the family had for all the pure blood in their veins. Why else would they be poor? Granger laid a hand on his knee. Disgusting.

"Listen Weasel," Draco began, and then the red-headed nuisance was on his feet, looming over him.

"Ron, sit down, there's no need for that." Potter stood. "What is it?"

Draco looked out the window. There were no more trees; there was only rock. "Don't say I didn't warn you." Draco turned and started hurrying down the aisle. He had tried. No one could blame him. Draco just had to get to the front car before—

His body suddenly jerked and floated off the ground. Held by invisible strings, Draco couldn't turn around. "Look," he growled, "I've done nothing to deserve this atrocious treatment—"

"What did you want to say, Malfoy?" The Weasel. How fitting. And he would take Draco down with him.

"Put me down, you insufferable wanker! I demand that you put me down this instant!"

"I don't think you're in any position to make demands now, do you?" Footsteps approached him from behind, and he was turned to face the Weasel's raised wand. "I've wanted to do this for a long time." Weasley jerked his wand up and Draco's head slammed into the ceiling.

"Ah!" Draco cried. He tried to nurse his head or raise his hands in defense, but he couldn't move. "I swear on Merlin's _grave_ that if you do not put me down _right now_—"

Potter stuck his head out of the compartment. "Ron! Put him down!"

Ron glared, but released him. "You're lucky. Git."

Draco landed hard on the floor of the train. His knees jarred and so did his teeth. He tasted blood in his mouth; his tongue smarted. "I hope they _kill_ you." Draco spat red on the jiggling floor and stood. He didn't bother looking at any of them as he strode out of the car—and saw nothing.

Nothing but tracks and the retreating form of the rest of the train as it drove to the Station…and safety.

"Oh, sod. Harry!" Weasley's voice was shrill in Draco's ear. Draco felt sick. They would find him here. Find him and kill him, or they would leave him here and the train would fly off the tracks and he would die. Either way he was dead. And on the off chance that he did survive, Potter would be dead, and then what would he have? Draco had planned this so carefully…and Potter had to ruin it all. Again.

Draco pushed backward, knocking Weasley to the side, until he was a safe distance from the rails being swallowed by the bottom of the open car. Potter looked outside and turned to Draco accusingly. "What's going on, Malfoy?" He pointed his wand at Draco, as if his own stupidity was somehow _Draco's_ fault. It always was, with Potter. "Why aren't we connected to the rest of the train?"

Draco gazed tiredly at Potter. Potter who was going to die soon enough. "Potter. I respect you, I really do. I might have been in love with you at some point, even."

Someone dropped their wand. Granger, probably. It clattered and rolled toward Draco's foot. They were going downhill, fast. Potter, for his part, looked like someone'd unhinged his jaw.

"But right now, I hate you. I really, really hate you." Draco slid quietly to the floor shoved the wand back toward Granger. Then he put his arms around his knees and waited. Blond hair hung in his down-turned face. He wondered if his life would flash before his eyes.

"You're a pouf?"

Draco's head snapped up. "Yes, Weasley, because _that's_ what's important right now! We're all going to _die_, but that doesn't matter because Malfoy's a pouf!"

That shut him up and started Potter going. Some days Draco wondered what he'd ever seen in Potter, what with his being attached to Weasley by the mouth. "It doesn't matter if you're a pouf!" He was talking to Weasley. Potter went back up a notch.

Draco rested his head against the wall behind him and sighed. He caught Granger looking at him out the corner of his eye. "You might want to hide," he said softly. "Not that it'll do any good." After a moment, Granger slowly slipped back into the Gryffindor trio's car. She had always been too bright for her own good. Now it might just save her mudblood little life.

Outside, the ground was rocky and brown. A cliff loomed to their left, open sky to their right. It made Draco sick to look at. He thought about his mother, the way her hair gleamed in the sunlight when she sat on the veranda drinking Morganna's Delights with ice that crackled in the glass. He thought of his father, rotting in Azkaban for a year before bloody Voldemort thought to get him out. He thought about the Slytherins and Dark Lord supporters in the first two cars, rolling to safety while the rest of them unwittingly waited to taste their deaths. He thought of Potter. Harry bloody Potter.

And finally, Draco thought of himself. What had he done with his life?

It was the most depressing thought of all.

* * *

The train was still zigging and zagging around the turns, which led the Slytherin to believe the train would safely arrive in King's Cross without a driver. If Voldemort didn't simply blast it off the tracks. 

Weasley and Potter were fighting about the nature of poufs, which was completely irrelevant, when a broom whizzed into view of the empty doorway.

Nott senior was riding it, black robe snapping and a sneer on his reed-thin face. His black hair whipped to and fro in the wind as he slowed and let the doorway swallow him. He landed to find himself faced with two wands and one standing Draco Malfoy, cool and confident to the fearful bravery on Potter and Weasley's faces. Draco looked sideways at Potter's square jaw and unblinking eyes. The Gryffindor really had grown.

"What are you doing here?" Nott addressed Malfoy, but looked at Potter. He ignored Weasley. Funny, because Weasley was so much more loose-wanded than his more cautious friend. Draco nearly smirked.

"I'm here to go with you. I want to be there when he dies."

Weasley's wand abruptly shifted to Draco. Draco stepped closer to Nott. "Put it down, Weasley—nothing good will come of it. Perhaps you'll start spitting up spiders."

Weasley looked a bit green but didn't lower his wand.

Potter was the one at fault for what happened next. Weasley was concentrating on Draco, but Potter looked for a split second at Draco's face. It was enough time for Nott to grab his own wand and attack. "_Expelliarmus! _"

Potter and Weasley's wands went flying. Draco managed to catch Potter's and pocket it, but Weasley's went to Nott.

"Give me that one," Nott said.

"It's safe with me," Draco said.

"What are you going to do with us?" Potter asked, not sounding the least bit afraid. Draco supposed he wouldn't be, anymore.

Nott shifted his attention to Potter. Draco internally sighed with relief. Nott's face stopped that feeling cold. "Well, you're coming with me. As for you…" He stared down Weasley, who had stepped protectively in front of Potter. "Well…What should we do with you?" The elder man grinned cruelly. Draco's heart thundered in his ears. "Master Malfoy, have you ever seen _Crucio_?"

Draco shook his head. He thought of the smarting in the back of his head and sneered at the Weasel. "Show me."

Weasley lunged forward. Nott waved his wand. Weasley was suddenly on the floor, shaking and shuddering and snapping like a doll being shaken in a werewolf's mouth. His eyes bugged out, whites impossibly large and pupils dilated. His chest, hands, knees, feet bumped and thumped repeatedly on the floor. Draco thought he might have heard something break.

"Enough!" shouted Potter, "I'll come with you! Stop hurting him!"

Nott stopped. So did Weasley—the redhead didn't move. Draco felt bile sting the back of his tongue. He had only seen it on animals before. Only _done_ it to animals. But this…this was….And he knew Weasley…

Potter's glare didn't help. "I'll come with you," he said, but his eyes said, I will never forgive you.

"Where are we going?" Draco asked, turning from Potter's accusing face.

"Up," Nott replied. He pulled out a snow globe with a tiny grave inside. "You come with us, Malfoy. Not much choice, really; we're derailing the train just as soon as we finish with Potter." He sneered the name, cursed it as he spoke. Draco had never heard such hatred before. Things were suddenly so much bigger than they had been when Draco got the letter.

Draco spoke confidently though, and hoped neither one could see right through him. "Good." And when Potter stepped behind him and reached for the globe, Draco slipped his own wand into Potter's robe and held it there until Potter stiffened…and sighed. "I'm ready." He reached for the globe—and disappeared.

* * *

They reappeared at the edge of a cliff. In the distance the Hogwarts Express approached, blowing green and blue and violet smoke from the stack on its head. Black-robed figures stood in a semi-circle around the cliff's edge, twenty feet off from where the trio appeared. The Dark Lord stood in the center, farthest from the edge. His power was a palpable thing. It seemed to call an answering strength in Potter, for suddenly Draco could _feel_ Potter standing behind him, opposite and equal, fearless and strong. It reassured him. He hoped he had done the right thing. 

"Why is the boy here?" The Dark Lord's voice was the hiss of a snake. Around his shoulders coiled a large green snake that flickered its tongue near the Lord's ear. Nagini—Draco had heard his father speak of the snake before, in the dark of his study when Draco was supposed to be asleep. Draco had never seen the Dark Lord before, but he was hideous. He stood like a man, but his fingers were sharp and taloned, and his face was stark white and nose nearly gone. His eyes were blood red, without whites or pupils. He seemed to see everything at once, even into Draco's soul. "Wanted to see, did he?" The dark-robed figures twittered.

One lowered his hood to reveal Draco's father. He was much diminished. His hair was a darker blond, his eyes haunted and sunken, his cheeks skeletal. He had been in Azkaban too long. Draco burned with rage.

"That's it," the Dark Lord laughed. "Come to me, child. We shall end this together."

Draco took a last look at Potter. He couldn't put into words just what he felt then, and he didn't want to. He entertained pushing Potter off the cliff and into the rocks below—he'd survive, he was a wizard—but walked instead to stand between the Dark Lord and his father. He withdrew his wand—no, Potter's wand—and gripped it. He needed the comfort; even the air around the Dark Lord was cold, as if the man was already dead. The snake hissed and flicked its tongue in his face. He stared unflinching at it. It opened its mouth and showed him its fangs. His face felt like cardboard, but Draco smiled.

Lucius Malfoy chuckled and put a hand on Draco's shoulder. "I think Nagini's made a new friend," he said. Nagini hissed. The Dark Lord nodded.

Draco couldn't say later what exactly happened next. The Dark Lord spoke. Draco's head rang strangely. He felt woozy, and time slowed and sped up. Curses began flying, all of them toward Potter. Potter threw up a wall around himself—without a wand—and the Dark Lord roared. Draco stood rooted to the spot as the Dark Lord lunged for Potter himself, wand raised in triumph.

And then Draco moved. He didn't realize he did it until afterward. He just heard the word Crucio and his body seized up. Fire ripped through his body. It felt as if his limbs were being unhinged and drilled back together in the wrong places. Draco worried in some small part of his mind that he would bite off his tongue. He worried that he would die. He wished that he would die.

Then the pain stopped, and Draco felt nothing, only noted the shocked look in his father's eyes as Draco stared at the semi-circle of Death Eaters and realized he had jumped in front of a curse. A curse meant for Potter.

Over Draco's head, an electric green curse zinged the wrong direction, shooting _toward_ the Death Eaters.

The dark shape with the white face and red eyes seized up and slumped out of Draco's vision.

Draco closed his eyes. His father had been avenged; he had seen the Dark Lord die.

Someone was shaking him. "Malfoy!" Breathing air into his lungs. Draco reached up with a shaking hand…

And then there was nothing.


End file.
